Pictures: Mysterious Viking-era Graves Found With Treasure

Who Was the Young Warrior?

Photograph courtesy S. Gronek

Sword at his side, the so-called Young Warrior (left) is among the thousand-year-old discoveries in a newfound cemetery in Poland, a new study says.

The burial ground holds not only a hoard of precious objects but also hints of human sacrifice—and several dozen graves of a mysterious people with links to both the Vikings and the rulers of the founding states of eastern Europe.

Researchers are especially intrigued by the Young Warrior, who died a violent death in his 20s. The man's jaw is fractured, his skull laced with cut marks. The sword provides further evidence of a martial life.

Objects in the warrior's grave suggest he had ties to one of the region's earliest Slavic monarchs, said the project leader Andrzej Buko, head of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Polish Academy of Sciences.

But the north-south orientation of the man's body is a Scandinavian custom. Slavic graves were oriented east-west, Buko says.

Buried just below the Young Warrior—probably at the same time, Buko said—is a woman in her early 20s who may have met a similarly violent end. Though evidence is scanty, Buko guesses she was killed to be buried with the man, "because it's very hard to suppose she died at the same moment as the warrior."

Alongside the warrior is a second woman (right), also in her early 20s. The timing of her death is unclear.

Archaeologists stumbled upon the cemetery, which dates to the late 10th and early 11th centuries, after surveying a highway-construction site near the village of Bodzia, roughly 90 miles (150 kilometers) northwest of Warsaw. The find is reported in this month's issue of the journal Antiquity.

"The best discoveries are not planned, and so it was in this case," Buko said. "Among many other things, we discovered this marvelous cemetery."

The emblem, like nothing seen before, could be a family motif or merely decoration, but for now its meaning is a mystery, said project leader Buko, who analyzed the finds with dig leader Iwona Sobkowiak-Tabaka. A similar kaptorga was found in a second grave.

In 10th- and 11th-century Poland, amulets, generally silver, served as good-luck charms for pagans and Christians alike. Kaptorgas have also been found holding bits of plants, including cannabis, the source of marijuana.

Objects such as this would've been included in a grave for the deceased to use in the afterlife, Buko said.

Published December 16, 2011

Status Symbol

Photograph courtesy M. Jórdeczka

A necklace of silver, rock crystal, and carnelian beads speaks to the wealth and status of its owner.

The pattern of tiny granules on the silver bead is a classic Slavic design. The newfound cemetery has also yielded more than 250 glass beads, some wrapped in gold or silver foil, some from the distant workshops of the Ottoman Empire, based in Constantinople (now Istanbul).

Other jewelry buried in the graves included 15 finger rings and 14 temple rings, ornaments that dangled from headbands worn by women of medieval eastern Europe.

Thirty-eight excavated coins also testify to the worldliness of their owners. Most of the coins were from Saxony, Bavaria, and Franconia, now all part of Germany. The rest were English and Scandinavian.

Sword of Death

Photograph courtesy Piotr Szejnoga

This sword, apparently meant to arm the Young Warrior in death, probably never saw earthly battle. The weapon's silver adornment would have made it too costly or impractical for use. But its presence—and that of other weapons in the cemetery—may hold a clue to the identity of the dead.

The swords and battle axes buried in the men's graves are of Viking, not Slavic, design, Buko said.

At the time of the burials, Viking warriors played a prominent role in eastern Europe. They guarded the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople and served as mercenaries for kings based in what is now Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

Vikings also formed the core of the elite retinue of tenth-century Polish leader Mieszko I.

Buko and his colleagues think the men buried in the cemetery may have been Viking warriors who served another medieval prince.

Published December 16, 2011

Connections

Photograph courtesy M. Jórdeczka

These bronze belt fittings, unearthed in the grave of the Young Warrior, contained the biggest surprise of all, Buko said.

Incised in the metal is a two-pronged emblem topped by a cross. This insignia, Buko said, shows the wearer was a close ally or even a kinsman of a ruler whose deeds are reflected in his nickname: Sviatopolk the Accursed.

Sviatopolk was a member of the dynasty that founded and ruled Kyivan Rus, the first true eastern Slavic state, which lay east of Poland and lasted from the 800s until collapsing four centuries later.

Sviatopolk briefly held the throne in the early 11th century. He earned his nickname by supposedly having his own brothers murdered, to consolidate his power. He was married to a Polish princess and received aid from his father-in-law, the Polish king Boreslav the Brave.

Perhaps the Young Warrior was a high-ranking member of Sviatopolk's military guard. Perhaps he was Sviatopolk's son. It's not clear who he was, or why a close confederate of a Kyivan Rus monarch is buried in Poland, but the warrior was "surely somebody close to" Sviatopolk, Buko said.

Fences and Neighbors

Photograph courtesy Andrzej Buko

Dark outlines in the soil reveal the presence of "fences of the dead," wooden palisades that each enclosed one to three graves.

Such structures are so rare that "we have nothing to compare them to" except fences from sixth- to seventh-century Britain, Buko said. Whereas Polish fences of the time were fastened at the corners, British ones weren't, and were weaker for it.

The graves themselves are roomy, in the Scandinavian style, unlike the shallow, narrow pits of eastern European graves of the time. The bodies were encased in wooden coffins adorned with fabric and reinforced with iron fittings. The closest parallels are coffins from ninth- and tenth-century Moravia, in what's now the Czech Republic.

Rare Balance

An ornate bronze balance could have been used for weighing precious metals. Nothing similar has been found in the region, Buko said, and such items are rare among medieval European artifacts.

The balance is an apt symbol of the complex role of the Vikings in 10th- and 11th-century eastern Europe.

They came to the region to trade, but they were not averse to drawing on their fearsome military skills to plunder and pillage. The balance "gives us evidence that fighting and commerce were very close to each other," Buko said.

Despite the ample Viking influences, it's impossible to assign a culture to the cemetery-or its dead, Buko said.

"You can recognize elements from Scandinavia, from Kyivan Rus ... from western Europe," he said. "It's a kind of synthesis from east, west, north, and south, in one place and all together."